Family Rituals
Rituals are meant to make new, young humans part of the tribe they belongs to. It is a confirmation of becoming an active member of the group. The coming-of-age ritual indicates that there is now an expectation that a young man will adhere to the rules that have kept the group together for generations, and that he, as an individual and fully-fledged member, is able to begin taking on the responsibilities of an adult.
Females never needed a formal ritual because they are the bearers of life as soon as a girl starts having periods. They have no choice in that. The female has been given, with her body, an existential responsibility, to receive and complete the circle with a new life.
Males carry the potential for life and are given a choice. Unfair? No, different. Potentially a male can create life and walk away leaving destruction in his wake or he can become a giver of life with the responsibility of being the protector of a family unit, the leader of a clan or even a nation!
That is why through the ages, coming-of age rituals were invented for boys who were on the cusp of adulthood, in puberty, and not for girls.
Boys were put through experiences at the time testosterone begins to race through their body; rituals that involved fear, pain and for some, a spiritual journey. These rituals separated the potential Peter Pans from the men who eventually could be a leader. Without this framework males tend to run amok.
The females of any group usually provided and kept a stable environment, preparing life giving sustenance, meaning food, a place to sleep and much needed human warmth, comfort and affection. Adult males cannot provide the latter for themselves but need it as a platform to stand on and take off from. In other words, to function safely and successfully.
In mythology females are compared to the Earth and males to the Sun. New growth happens in the earth, the dark, in an enclosed space where a fertilized seed must develop, incubated until it is strong enough to survive; that is what The Female provides. A human, in contrast to most mammals, needs further incubation in the light but within the ‘womb of the family’, expanding to the extended family and community at large until such time when, like a tree, its roots are strong enough to hold the branches and bear the fruit while the top reaches up to the sky and the sun. The roots are considered female and the trunk male.
In today’s society a lot has been forgotten about the purpose of rituals ever since people moved to cities. Religions and Holy Books have provided guidance for centuries, but they have become weakened in the face of modern technology. Humans without ‘a rulebook’ or rituals by which they learn to navigate life, especially in a different environment, without clan or community and without elders to set a framework, can easily feel lost. With only an anonymous and unknown government in another country, another language, many people can feel adrift. Technological devices and programs have accelerated the undoing of traditions.
We have reached a point, I believe, that we have to create new and meaningful rituals within a framework, a cadre as the French would say, that can be applied on a local as well as on a global scale. For instance, imagine how we could turn giving (male) youngsters the Keys to a Car into a community rite of passage in which they have learned about adult responsibilities to themselves, passengers and other people on the road..
